


Alive

by MonikaFileFan



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Heavy Angst, Missing Scenes, Pregnancy, Romance, Smut, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:55:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23206015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonikaFileFan/pseuds/MonikaFileFan
Summary: A glimpse into Scully’s emotional state of mind during those missing moments before and after Mulder’s death. Mulder leaves behind something special for Scully to cling to besides their son.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 18
Kudos: 81





	Alive

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally published in the MSR Fanzine last fall and since has been edited. The angst is palpable as is Scully’s grief, but I think the romantic side outweighs the pain. 😉

_“Your death changed me. It took me with you.” -Lyn Ragan_

**_Spring_ **

Scully would come to apartment forty-two when her yearning to touch him, to be surrounded by his scent, to hear him say her name from the confines of his living room became overwhelming. Thank God she had decided to save a handful of voice messages on her machine he’d left her on a whim after they had finally stepped over their relationship threshold and took that physical leap. Even if they were the same words she’d memorized by heart a hundred times by then, she would hold onto each syllable like a lifeline forever. ****

Her mind drifted unwillingly from the warmth of Mulder’s well-worn couch, to the sterile cold of the morgue where the father of her child had been sent, even after her frantic protests. ****

She knew what the medical examiner would do when the attendant rolled her partner, her best friend, her _everything_ in on the metal table. She knew what would happen when the pathologist’s bag was unzipped to reveal his abused body. What his beautiful slopes and curves would be reduced to if she allowed a scalpel to come anywhere near her Mulder. Never would she agree to another profane invasion of him. Never. ****

“God, I’m sorry, Mulder… I’m so, so sorry,” she whimpered. ****

The hard lump in her throat carried the weight of every part of her broken heart. ****

“Jesus, it burns,” she palmed the fiery ache in her chest, just above her heart, praying that maybe this time it would heal her wounds. ****

The tangible signs of grief lingered everywhere on her body—dark circles under her eyes, the taste of salty tears in her mouth. She felt haggard and pale; nothing like what a woman with a burgeoning belly on the verge of bringing life into the world should feel like. ****

She missed him so much it stung. ****

The cadence of his voice on the message equally pained and comforted her but she was determined not to forget the sound while she mourned the fact that she would never hear it in person again. Knowing she would ever feel the baritone vibrations beneath her hands as she caressed his warm, bare chest and pressed her lips over his steady beating heart made tears spill over her lashes. Never again would she feel his large gentle hands exploring every inch of her body from head to toe as he spoke in unwavering reverence. Scully would not be feeling his soft lips kiss the expanse of her neck, her wrists, and inner thighs as they made love in the dark of her bedroom or behind locked doors of their office. ****

All she had were memories. ****

The recording hummed and clicked at its end. A ghost of a smile pulled at her mouth as she set the machine on the empty cushion at her side, already knowing what the first message would say. The tape started over and began to play the first of the few messages she’d impulsively saved… ****

 _“Hey, Scully, it’s me. I’m currently sitting on my couch, holding a Shiner Bock, and thinking about how we should revisit that very specific X-File after work tomorrow night. The possibilities of exploration on that topic are just too thrilling to pass up. Can’t let this affect our solve rate now, can we?”_ He let out that deep, throaty, aroused laugh that still sent her heart racing. _“Sorry, I just… I can’t stop thinking about you. Sweet dreams, Scully.”_ ****

Beep… ****

“And I’ll _never_ stop thinking about you, Mulder. Sweet dreams. ”

**_  
  
_ **

**_Winter_ **

“This is not happening!” she screamed into the empty room that had just held Mulder’s only hope of survival. The other half of her heart—the half that Mulder had left her with—was surely shattered now. 

Scully ran through the forest with tears of frustrated anguish pouring down her face, chest aching as adrenaline thrummed through her veins. She saw a glimpse of Mulder again hidden behind bodies of strangers as they gawked at him lying helpless on the ground. Jeremiah Smith was gone and Scully was on the brink of losing what was left of her rational mind. 

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. She couldn’t be too late… 

“Why hasn’t he been covered with more than a half-assed blanket? What the fuck have you been doing?” Skinner yelled in frustration as he stomped over to the closest deputy and gripped his arm. “Agent Scully will be back any second and she can’t see him like this again!” 

Scully heard his voice cut through her footfalls echoing in the eerie calm of the forest, yet hadn’t comprehended his words. 

Time stretched like taffy as her whole world slowly slipped through her numbing fingers. “No…”

She slowed her pace and stumbled into the nearest tree trunk, her body sagging under the tremendous weight of reality. 

“Mulder,” she cried out in a breathless rasp. 

“Agent Scully!” Doggett jogged over to her side and braced her trembling arm as she slumped further down along the bark of the tree. “You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered, his lips moving in slow motion. “Dana…”

She was drowning and her only life preserver wasn’t the one holding her hand.

Her head fogged as she gasped for air. Everything was suddenly muted by the rushing blood through her ears. “ _Dead_ ,” she choked. That familiar roil of her stomach and watering of her mouth screamed as the acrid taste of vomit rose in her clogged throat.

The sight of Mulder lying lifelessly in the dirt as a crowd formed around him sent a searing pain ripping through her chest. The sheer force of agony that slammed into her was tremendous. It was an all-consuming hurricane of hurt that only grew in intensity. 

“Ge-get off me.” Barely registering the gentle tugging on her arm and Skinner’s baritone plea to let Monica take her home, Scully batted away offered help from the blurred silhouettes of her friends, seemingly floating her way over to Mulder, and sinking down to her knees next to his still, supine sprawl. 

Scully stared at his ashen face and all realism slipped away…

“Stay, please… please, don’t leave!” she sobbed, begging and stroking his cheek more desperately than she had the moment she first laid eyes on him this way, as if her rain of tears could wash away the veil of death. “Mulder, _please_ don’t leave me.” The surge of watery emotion obstructed her vision as a new wave of panic set in. His eyes were forever closed and she would never look into his soft, hazel gaze again. “This is _not happening_ …”

  
  


**_Spring_ **

Three months had passed since she sprinkled dirt over the final resting place of Fox Mulder, the man that changed her entire universe with one shake of her hand. It all felt like a surreal dream—like a fucking nightmare she’d never wake up from. She knew she couldn’t wander through the rest of her life barely existing in a universe without the other half of her soul, not when the life of their miracle child relied on it. It still hadn’t made existing any easier. 

Fresh tears burned over the swell of her cheeks as they crisscrossed the drying paths down her skin. Her face was fuller now with a freckle spattered glow of pregnancy accentuating her features. Her body had changed for motherhood in a multitude of ways. Yet, in her mind and heart, she would remain forever tangled in time, torturously reminding herself that she would always feel like a grieving widow to a man she’d shared souls with instead of vows.

Sometimes she had a suspicion that without this life they created innocently tumbling inside her, she wouldn’t be able to withstand another moment without him. It was as if she only survived because he left her with a lifesaving gift of undying love kicking from within: a smaller, yet just as precious life preserver as he. 

Scully’s heavy eyes fluttered as sleep beckoned like a siren call, luring her toward an easy escape from the mourning in her mind and the pain in her heart. She knew it would be so easy to succumb to it. To pretend he was lounging right next to her, smirking with his bare, slender feet propped up on the table’s edge. But even pretending would never be enough; not anymore. 

Scully sighed, moving the white box that contained so much to rest atop the swell of their son, and pressed the playback button on her answering machine once again. His tiny wiggles and bumps reminded her that he now recognized Mulder’s soothing voice as a familiar one because of it. As for her, her breath hitched like it always did when she heard it.

_“Hey, Scully. It’s me again…”_

Mulder’s tender words pierced the silence of his apartment. It propelled her right back to that night her pregnancy had first made itself known in an Oregon motel room. That was also the last time she and Mulder had made love after the wave of estrogen-induced sickness dissipated: beautiful, passionate, earth-shattering love that carried on throughout the night. 

_“...I know you just left the office and that you have errands to run before you get home, but I wanted you to know—needed you to remember how much I appreciate your support…”_

If she just closed her eyes, she could picture them together like they were still there, her threading her fingers through his while their mouths glided along one another’s with lustful need. Visions of her body entwined with Mulder’s undulating in the moonlit room gave her an overwhelming urge to send her tongue across her lips. She could practically sense his warm mouth on hers, feel the silk of his chestnut hair sliding through her fingers, and watch the golden gleam in his eyes telling her just how much he loved her. 

_“...How much I lo… appreciate you. Because I do, Scully. I always have.”_

Beep...

Scully gasped, recalling in vivid detail how her hands had caressed and pressed against his toned chest, her nails leaving evidence of her pleasure along the planes of his golden shoulders as she swayed above him. The heat that radiated from their slick, surging bodies created utter euphoria. Tranquil rocking, soft moans, and murmured affirmations vibrated along one another’s skin as they fell in love all over again.

She thought of the trust they created over the years and the silent promises they’d made and how they had so much more to look forward to on this endless journey spent together.

“Oh, Scully,” he had whispered into the tender expanse of her neck as he cradled her cheek, brushing his thumb across her brow. He trailed soft kisses along her forehead, across her jaw, and rasped in her ear, "You’re my light in the dark."

“God, Mulder, you know...” she’d cupped his face as tears stung her eyes and her forehead held firm against his. “You know you are mine.”

But what she didn’t know, hadn’t realized during that last night spent together in the throes of passion and confessions in the dark, that the love of her life was slowly dying in her arms.

“Goddamn it,” she huffed, her nails digging half moons into the leather cushion beneath her. “So stubborn and protective of me. So very Mulder.”

He was dying from what that black-lunged bastard did to him. Fucking dying, and never told her. He never let her help, never let her hold him in comfort when he should have been able to. There was so much more she could have done, could have said to him in those final months of their relationship. She’d been shocked and confused, frustrated, and furious even, when the medical records came back confirming Doggett’s statement about Mulder’s decline in health and that he’d intentionally kept it secret from her. It was protection without consent, and it hurt, no matter how much she would have sympathized with the reasoning behind it. 

Just as quickly as that rawness arose, the overwhelming emotion of sorrow sliced through her like a knife. He’d left her everything in his life. His bank accounts, his mother’s family heirlooms, and multiple properties she would never use. Everything but what she truly needed: him.

Her phone rang loudly from her pocket, startling her back to her present state of loneliness. She pressed stop on the machine just as Mulder began to speak in his third message about what time he was stopping by after his nightly run through Alexandria. She’d have to wait to listen to her favorite part of him describing what he planned to do to her when he got there if she answered. She was tempted to just ignore the shrill ringing as the top contender on the other end was likely John Doggett: her partner, yes. A good man, yes; but recently, he only served as a mocking reminder that the only man she actually wanted to hear from would never call her again.

Running a hand over the curve of her shifting womb, she calmed what remained of Mulder curled up and safe as she grabbed her phone anyway. 

Her head fell back along the couch and her eyes blinked closed. “Scully,” she answered with a sigh, her lips still tingling with the memory of Mulder’s kiss. 

“Agent Scully, where are you?” Her eyes flew open at the tone of Skinner's voice. He never called her this late anymore. 

Not since Mulder...

“Mul—Hegel Place,” she admitted, feeling her heart beat wildly against her ribs. A complete juxtaposition from the blue calm of the fish tank gurgling next to her. “What is it?” 

A heavy silence drifted slowly through the earpiece like smoke from a flame. 

“Sir?” Scully held her breath only to hear Skinner’s ragged breathing in return. 

She was frozen with her eyes locked onto the X-lined remnants of tape stuck to the window, as if time itself bowed down to the importance of what was about to be spoken. 

“Scully. Dana…” he sighed, breathless as if no words could adequately describe his reason for calling. 

“What is it? Dammit, just tell me!” She sat up, not even realizing she was vigorously rubbing a shaking hand across her belly to soothe her restless baby within.

Clearing his throat, she heard him attempt to gather his composer. “It’s Mulder, we’ve… well, we found a pulse. He’s in the ICU right now—U.S. Naval Hospital in Annapolis. We’re not sure of anything else at the moment.” 

“Wha… what the hell are you talking about?” Scully absorbed nothing else beyond _Mulder_ and _found a pulse_. Her heart hammered in her chest that was tightening like a vise and simultaneously expanding with something she thought she’d lost: hope. “Alive, Skinner?”

“Yes, Scully. He’s alive.”

_Mulder._

“I’m coming.” Scully ended the call, stood as quickly as pregnantly possible from her spot on the couch, not even bothering to take the machine she had brought with her. She practically ran to the door with blood and elation rushing through her veins as she fumbled with her shoes. She grabbed her work jacket and reflexively locked his door as the haze of adrenaline washed over. 

Speed walking down a hallway filled with the ghosts of their younger selves, she realized her life had just changed dramatically once again. Just another fork in the road that had shaped their life of peril together. 

_Alive._

Could it really be true? Could she trust what she’d heard enough to risk her heart, her sanity? Truth for Mulder and her had been so elusive in the past. But this, she _needed_ to be true. 

“God, is Mulder really…” Scully hesitated in voicing her hope aloud in prayer. Something she hadn’t done since standing at his graveside in Raleigh, just in case it was a figment of complete desperation. In case she had finally fallen down the rabbit hole and this was all a wonderful, torturous dream.

It wasn’t until she entered the elevator and frantically jabbed at the down button, that she felt a strong and well-placed kick to the ribs in response. Dana Scully held the only answer she needed in that moment: faith; and it had been slowly growing inside her since that fateful night she slipped into Mulder’s bed and solidified their love for one another.

Never had she wanted to believe in anything so badly. 

“...Alive.” 


End file.
